


Sonata Nautica

by Roo_Bastmoon



Category: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Romance, Smut, sap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 06:27:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/923078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roo_Bastmoon/pseuds/Roo_Bastmoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the course of their journey, Doctor Maturin records his thoughts on Captain Aubrey in his private journal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sonata Nautica

April, 1805  
HMS Surprise  
Private Journal of Doctor Stephen Maturin

 

The Acheron pounded us to smithereens today.

The sun was not yet up. Fog lay heavy on the sea. The men were asleep, their bodies in their sacs, swinging like cocoons in a tree bent with strong wind.

The mark was five fathoms, and we beat to quarters. The cannonballs banged and smashed their way into your ship, your men. But you saw us through, hid us in the thick fog.

“You’re in good hands,” you said to Lord Blakeney, as I set his broken arm tonight.

I touched your brow. You had not noted the blood there until I spoke. You touched your forehead with surprise. What, I? you must have thought. I, lucky Jack Aubrey, wounded? Insupportable.

But you bled, just like the rest of us, and like the rest of us, I had to tend to you. No great chore, as it afforded me the right to touch you, to mop the sweat and blood from your face, to trace my fingertips across the stubble of your cheek, ghost over your neck with the whisper of my touch… remove the splinter lodged in your throat. And here I thought that husky whisper might have been for me, but no, just the effects of the wound. What a strange creature you are, Jack Aubrey.

You spoke of how curious it was that the Acheron knew your exact position and happened upon you so readily.

“The French have spies in England and abroad. As do we,” I said. I wonder if you suspect me yet?

You spoke at your dinner table of the balance of this war. I blundered into insulting your ship.

“Would you call me an aged man o’ war, Stephen?” Desire spiked though me as I watched you smooth your palm over the broken shards of your cabin. “She’s in her prime,” you said. Yes, she is. You make her so.

I went bed, the ache for your caress so keen that I knew I would not sleep this night.

 

~*~

 

It was with tears in my eyes that I severed Lord Blakeney’s arm today. I have performed this kind of butchery countless times over, but never to a child of fourteen, and never for a lad so silent and still. I told him that I had never seen a braver patient. Only once before. Only you.

He is practically yours, Jack. I know you were more than friends with his father. It’s written on your face, every time your eyes stray to the child. You loved Lord Blakeney, and now you’ve crippled his son. It tortures you that daily you send the boy into peril.

Perhaps you know something of my heart, but are afraid now, of the price of love. That the cost might be too dear. We are all in the same boat, Jack, if you will forgive the expression. Let me love you?

I saw the carvings in the stone, the date scratched in—1785—and your initials, bold as brass. You were just a boy then, already making your mark on the world. It was said that there’s enough of your blood in the woodwork for this ship to almost be your kin. I love this ship because it is an extension of you. I hate the oceans, the weather, the nonsensical madness of war, but I love this ship, I can almost feel its heart beat, for you Jack, always for you.

“Show him a beetle and he will tell you what it’s thinking,” Barnett said about me today. I’ll tell you what the bloody beetle was thinking. Get me back to land, damn it all, for a beetle is not a sea-creature.

No. Nor am I. But for you.

~*~

You gave your book on Nelson to Blakeney. The tales of a hero with one hand. Brilliant Jack. Your ways of making amends are certainly charming. You can be utterly dazzling when you want to, with that gentle smile, those eyes a-twinkle. Damn you, but you make me drunk with want.

Later I came to your cabin with my instrument at the ready.

You were drunk.

You seemed eager to take up your violin and so I tuned my cello and asked you, “Will this do? Or are you in the mood for something more aggressive?”

You smiled. You knew I was flirting with you, but as always, you remained silent and aloof.

Plucked and slid over her strings. Plucked and slid over my soul.

The music we made was so beautiful; tears came unbidden to my eyes. You noted them before I could blink them away. You stopped, damn you. Set your violin on the table. Walked over to me.

I kept playing, afraid. So afraid.

You lifted my chin, made me look into your eyes. Still, I played on, the melody so sad and haunting.

“Irishman,” you said softly. “You’re crying at the sound of your own music. How typical.”

I tried to smile but all I could do was sob. You took up my face in your hands and kissed me then. The warm, sandy press of your lips to mine, the sweetness of your breath, laced with rum and sugar and lime. The graze of your cheek against mine. I must have moaned then, because you made me tilt my head and pressed into me harder, lapped at the corner of my mouth, gained entrance, plunged in deep.

You took the cello out of my hands, rested it on the floor, and pulled me to you. I thought I had strayed into a dream, but the heat that rolled off you in waves could not have been imagined. I wrapped my arms around your shoulders, your waist, clinging to you then. You gripped the back of my head, bent me over, took all of me that I could offer, and took then still more. And finally, when I thought that my lungs would burn away to cinders, you broke for air.

Your expression was that of spun glass just before it shatters. So precariously fragile. So entrancing.

“What have I done?” you whispered.

I had no words. I reached out for you, so glad you did not shrink from my touch, and I fisted your vest, drew you up close to me, and with courage I didn’t know that I possessed, I sealed my mouth over yours.

I was, of course, more languorous than you. I wanted it to last; I wanted to remember every detail. You, on the other hand, came at me as fiercely as one of your cannonballs, wrecking everything in its wake. You bit at my lips, the cords in my neck, the muscles just above my shoulder. You ripped my shirt open, of all things, and began to lave at me, as if you’d been months at sea without a drop of water and I was your first drink. I opened to you; I urged you on by every means I knew. I moaned. I panted. I grappled at any part of you I could reach.

You kissed my stomach and I threaded my fingers through your hair, freed the silky strands from their tie, raked my nails across your scalp. You looked up at me and I was lost in your eyes.

“Do you know what I’m going to do to you, Stephen?” you asked, your voice low, mischievous, dangerously seductive and soft like bolts of silk.

I shook my head.

“Well, my friend.” You smiled slowly and I almost melted over your desk. “Pay close attention. I would someday like the favor returned.”

And then your hand closed over my clothed erection and I watched, with eyes wide, as you cupped me, slid your palm up and down over me, applying pressure in maddeningly slow increments. I watched as you rubbed me through my trousers, making me so hard I could have wept; I watched as you increased your pace, made my hips undulate towards you minutely, then with more abandon. But you stopped.

You parted my trousers and brought my manhood out, and I was shy then, so unbearably shy, but your smile was reassuring and then you delicately set about licking the underside of my cock, and my eyes rolled back in their sockets and I shoved my fist into my mouth to keep from screaming—not that it worked very well—and then your entire mouth engulfed me and I relaxed against the desk, my hands in your hair, your nose pressed to my abdomen, warm puffs of breath coming from your nostrils, your wet, sinful tongue swirling about the head and shaft of my cock, your hands holding my hips down on your desk, and my cries muffled around my fist.

“Jack,” I strained.

“Pay attention, Stephen,” you murmured, taking just the tip of my organ past your lips and then bobbing on it rapidly, your thumb and forefinger closing a tight ring to slide up and down my shaft, the sensation exquisite, the air stealing from my lungs, my fingers clenching in your hair, my pelvis twisting and bucking as deeply into you as you would allow, and then, electricity shot up through my spine and I came, flooding your mouth, keening with pleasure.

You took all I had to give.

When I could open my eyes, I saw you, kneeling before me, your hands casually draped over my thighs, a glint in your eye, a drop of my pearly spending glistening on your lower lip. I came at you then, all claws and hunger, pushing you to the floor, mapping the inside of your mouth for the taste of myself, pressing our bodies flush. Your erection jabbed at me and I ground our hips together. You moaned and I thrilled to finally get a reaction out of you.

“Is this what you want, Jack?” I whispered, gyrating my hips just so over your hardness.

You grabbed my arse then, pulling me towards you, grinding into me feverishly as I sucked on your neck, licked at your jaw.

I placed a hand between us and flattened my palm against your cock—now hard and straight as the mast—and began to rub you through your trousers. If you could have only seen your face then, the grim press of your lips as you floundered for self-control, the flash of surprise and desire in your eyes. How I wanted you to want me, past bearing.

I leaned down and traced the shell of your ear with my tongue and whispered hotly, “Bugger me, Jack.”

You flipped me over then, pressed my face to the cabin floor. I could hear you tear at your trousers with one hand even as you positioned me with your other. I rested on my elbows as you pulled my hips back and arched them up. Without ceremony you yanked my trousers down, leaving me there, naked, shivering with need, on all fours like a dog.

Then the trace of your fingertips between my cheeks, the solid warmth of your finger at my entrance.

“I need oil,” you ground out.

“Don’t make me wait,” I panted back.

“Oil,” you insisted, and made to get up and go to your highboy.

But if you got up and walked away, you might have had time to think, a chance to reconsider, to change your mind. I didn’t want you thinking, I wanted you fucking me, so I pushed up onto my knees and reached back for you, clenching at your shirt and bringing you flush against me.

“Take me now, Captain,” I said, my voice like grit between millstones, “or not at all.” I held my breath. It was a dangerous card to play.

But you sighed and eased us back down, lifting my hips to you and placing the tip of your cock at my entrance. “This will hurt, Stephen,” you said, as if I needed the warning.

“I want it to, Jack.”

And so you pushed in and I bit my lip so hard it bled, but it felt good to finally have you in me. You went about it with much more care than I’d expected; you must have regained some self-control when you made for the oil. Inch by inch you impaled me, and I struggled not to shake or cry out. It was so quiet then. Just the sounds of our breathing and the sea. You were concentrating, but I didn’t know for what purpose, sliding so gently into my sheath, as gently as possible, and then suddenly pressing up, and I had to gasp as your cock nudged me deep inside.

“Sweet God in heaven,” I murmured.

“There it is,” you whispered under your breath, and withdrew only slightly before pushing back towards the same mark.

I did cry out then, lowering my head, shifting so as to afford you better purchase. How I loved your hands, soothing and tender upon my back. You could not move fast enough for me; you refused to go at anything other than a snail’s pace, until I was stretched open and my thighs quivered with ache and my breathing became completely erratic. Then you cupped your hands around my pelvic bones and began to bugger me in earnest.

I believe I moaned with every thrust in and whimpered at your every withdraw. You didn’t seem to mind my clumsy noises; in fact, I think they made you hotter. At one point you were shoving your cock into me, snapping your hips forward with raw power and grit teeth and harsh panting, panting, so close. All I could do at that point to show that I was there with you, wanting you, needing you, obeying your every whim, was to push back against you and call your name, over and over.

It was bliss.

You exploded with a hoarse shout, fingers digging dark bruises into my sides, your seed tumbling and gushing into me like hot, wet sheets of summer rain, coating me, filling me, marking me. The smell of your spice. The way you trembled when you collapsed against me. Your jagged breath battering against my ear. I could feel your heart, beating like a drum across my back.

“Oh, Stephen,” you sighed, rolling over onto your back, covering your eyes with the crook of your arm.

I crawled over to you then. Splintered, raw, bleeding, your milky fluid cooling between my legs, I crawled towards you, nestled my head between your shoulder and cheek, rested my hand over your heart—still drumming, drumming.

“I love you,” I said, quite plainly, quite simply, and in earnest.

You said nothing for a long time, and I wondered if you were feigning sleep. But then you hooked an arm around me and nodded, unable to speak, and I could smell the salt of your tears, hidden beneath the fabric of your sleeve, and I wanted to lean over you and kiss them away, but you were slipping fast out of Jack and back into Captain, and you would brook no sloppy displays of affection. So I lay quite, listening to your heartbeat return to normal, to your breathing even, slunk half-over you as the ship tossed from side to side, sharing what was left of our heat.

You slept then, and I arranged myself and simply looked at you for much of the night. I could stay, I thought, and take you back to your sac, hold you, make love to you again until the dawn. Or I could go, and let you come to me, on your terms, as you wanted.

And then I smiled, wondering at how I thought there could be any other way, but yours.

The next day you walked passed me on deck, turned, cleared your throat and actually apologized if the drink and stress of last night made you say or do anything you might now regret. You bowed to me, not looking me in the eye, and I wanted to pitch myself over the stern rather than play the farce of pretending that last night didn’t happen.

I hate you, Jack.

~*~

 

As I write this, you are writing to Sophie. Your lovely wife. I hate you for it.

I want to wound you so badly. I want you to get slit and sliced and burned and diminished, as you have done to me.

And then again, I want you happy. I want you to be free. I want you to get your Acheron and abandon me to your home, your fame and fortune and glory. I want you to never look back.

I just want you inside me, one more time.

 

~*~

 

You looked at a dark-skinned native girl from some South American paradise today. I burned with jealousy. Why can I not always have your eye? Was that night truly only a product of drink and anger and loneliness?

I spoke in broken Spanish to one of the locals about your Acheron. I did this for you, because you’ve asked me to, because your men expect it of me. But what I wanted most is the balmy comfort of my bag and a good book and stiff, strong drink.

And later that night, wrapped in my blankets and self-pity, I lay in my sac and scanned an old manuscript, completely unsuspecting, when you opened my door with a burst of noise.

I was going to ask what had happened, who was sick, but you didn’t even give me the chance. You strode over to me, slamming the door shut behind you, your eyes blazing.

“Jack?” I asked, frightened.

“Stephen. Forgive me.” You broke then. The only time I’ve ever seen your mask crack. You closed your eyes and pitched forward, buried your head in my lap, going to your knees, a great sob torn from your throat. “Forgive me.”

Forgive you? I love you. Any trespass you commit, I will absolve. It is you who must forgive me. My Jack.

I petted your hair, stroked it behind your ear as I murmured comforting sounds. You were soothed by the fact that I’m not angry. I didn’t realize I had so much power over you. I climbed out of the bag, got down on my knees beside you and touched our foreheads together.

“Kiss me?” I begged. You are still master here, after all.

You shook your head. Still trying so hard to deny what was between us.

“Kiss me,” I urged again, and you did, your mouth locking over mine, tilting your head back and forth so that the full blush of our lips touched, your arms greedily pulling me into your lap.

I knew I had you then. I let my hands wander as they willed, exploring you, divesting you of your uniform slowly, sensually, as you, all the while, laved at my throat and pulled my hips down towards you. I stared at you in awe. You made me ride you like a horse, your thick erection brushing painfully across the swell of my arse. Never breaking eye contact, I brought your right hand up to me then, kissed your palm, took your forefinger into my mouth and sucked. Sucked hard.

You narrowed your eyes and I smiled, knowing I would have to be punished for my insolent playfulness. After all, this, like everything else to you, was a serious matter. So you swatted my bum.

“Cheeky Irishman,” you murmured.

But I surprised you, didn’t I? Your sharp touch only racketed my desire and I let you know it, riding you faster, harder.

“Again, Jack,” I breathed, before kissing you soundly, sucking your lower lip into my mouth, biting down, pulling it out a little and then letting go. “Do it again.”

And so your hand rained down many blows, some playful, some dark and meant to sting, some that still smart yellow even as I write this. God, how I wanted you to mark me, Jack. You must have felt it to, the desire to claim.

For eventually you rolled me onto my back, leaning over me, aligning our cocks, mashing our hips together with the swell and break of every wave upon the bow. There wasn’t even time for me to disrobe, so insistent and eager were you, taking me there, humping between my legs as if I were a woman, grunting and panting obscenities into my ear. I hooked my legs around your waist, my hands pulling you to me for more of those molten kisses, and I could feel the lust coil in you like a snake. Just knowing I had this effect on your made me giddy.

You raked at my belly. Twisted my nipples. Bit down on my ear. I arched up then, planting both feet on the floor, lifting us while you thrust feverishly, hanging off you as you cried out my name.

“Harder, Jack. Make it hurt!” I remember saying. And you slapped the floor and made me scream then, drilling your cock between my legs, making the material of my trousers scrape over my own hardness, pressing our aches together until I saw spots of light behind my eyes.

“Come for me, damn you,” you growled, and obedient as ever, I did. I know I must have howled then, the pleasure swarming around me, swallowing my sanity. You kept at me, though, harder and harder, closer to your finish, and I clung to you, let you use me this way, wanting your completion more than my own. I gripped your arse and made you fuck me, straining up to you, pressing our foreheads together.

“Jack,” I whispered. “Let go.”

And with a little sob, you came then; I could feel the hot fluid stain my trousers. I reached a hand down and gathered some of your seed up, lifted it to my mouth, and closed my eyes as I tasted you.

“Christ,” you said, your voice laced with need and pain.

“Just Stephen will do.” I smiled at you then, and your smile back was as radiant as the first dawn I ever saw at sea.

You kissed me then, genuine, unguarded, passionate. And I wondered what the hell I had just gotten us into?

~*~

“What a fascinating modern age we live in,” you said tonight, at dinner.

You share my passion for science sometimes. But I turn my gaze to the wonders of nature, and you, to the wonders of war. You can be such a ruddy stick in the mud, sometimes, Jack Aubrey.

And then you go and make that joke about the lesser of two weevils.

I didn’t know whether to kiss you or smack you for that.

“To wives and sweethearts,” you toasted, looking directly at me. I could have choked on my heart just then.

“May the two never meet,” someone else said, and my thoughts turn to Sophie and England and bitterness.

You must have seen my sour expression, for you quickly changed the topic and spoke of Nelson at the Nile, about him being a man of singular vision.

So you have passion, Jack. But you see, I am a man of singular vision as well. Your eyes look ever onward to the Acheron, your prize. Mine are fixed on you, my cross to bear.

“Authority corrupts,” I cautioned. But you did not heed the warning. How many more hints must I give you, Jack?

It doesn’t matter. You fixed me with that look of yours and I knew instantly that I will spend the night on my knees or back, you straining over me, and I will live for every second of it, and in the morning you won’t even remember what I’ve tried to tell you.

The next day you looked to your Acheron and said, “What is it with this fellow? I kill a relative of his, perhaps? A son, God forbid?”

“He fights like you, Jack,” I replied. But again, you did not take my meaning.

~*~

Killock grumbled to me as you rode the uppermost mast with Tom Pullings this morning. I cannot help it. Your happiness is infectious. I’m delighted to see you so fired up, Jack. I’m delighted to see your zeal in the storm—more passion in your heart than the gale can put wind in our sails—all of which you have open, by the way, like some madman obsessed.

I fell down during the worst of it, drowning as the sea belched up over the sides of the Surprise, but you leaned into the wind of the Horn and laughed. You laughed. And I thought that later that night, if we lived through this, I would come to your cabin on the pretense of playing a tune, and then I would reach out to you, remove your sopping jacket, open your soaked shirt, and lap at the salty spray on your chest and neck. You would suck in a breath in the pretense of control, and then your arms would come up to mine, you would rend my shirt to pieces, and the real storm would begin.

But then, you cut the boy lose today. Hacked the ropes that bound us to the sinking wreckage and let the seaman drown. You saved us all. But to you it felt like murder. And later in your cabin we discussed guilt and duty and pride—I tried to give you comfort, but you are the master and commander, Jack, and would have none of it. Lightning crashed all around us and I tried to explain how it felt having men under my care die, but you simply slung at me the melancholic assignation—Irishman.

“There’s little I detest more than an informer,” I said, and then felt shame coat my tongue like ash.

“I ask you as a friend then,” you said.

And I tried to explain to you where we went wrong. “You’re not accustomed to defeat,” I said.

I love you, is what I wanted to say. At least there, you seemed to take my meaning.

~*~

You promised me the Galapagos Islands today. “I would like that best of all things,” I said, and you seemed pleased, eager to make me happy. A man could go mad with that much power.

We sang and drank and played long into the night, and then I came to you with such unabashed wantonness, so grateful to you, Jack, that I think I startled you.

I took you in my mouth for the first time. You tasted salty, of course, and your musk smelled so clean, so male. I was surprised at how soft your foreskin was, like velvet over granite. I was also surprised that you didn’t lay a hand on me. You balled your hands into fists over your head, your eyes never leaving mine, watching as I struggled to take all of your length, as I worked hard to make myself as slick and tight and warm for you as I could.

You tried desperately to keep your hips still, your breathing even, but you see, your eyes will always give you away. Your pupils were dilated to the maximum, your teeth biting down on your lower lip, and the very fact that you kept so still assures me that I had you tittering on the edge of abandon.

I moved off you then, sticking my tongue out and rubbing your cock over it. You moaned my name. I wanted you in me, then.

“Stay here,” I whispered, getting up and retrieving some salve from my kit.

“Bloody Irishman. Now you take me at my word,” you chastise, as I take a palm full of the slick stuff. I coat your shaft gently and smile as your head lolls back.

“Feels good?” I whispered, stroking you.

You gripped me by the back of the neck and pulled me close. “Feels better, in you.”

I kissed you and climbed into your lap, easing down on your turgid cock, and it’s easier this time, and I can see you now, the hazy blue of your eyes, the slight grin on your face, the blush in your cheeks.

I rocked us both, so gently and slowly, tenderly then, not lust, but love in our every movement. You let me drive us leisurely towards ecstasy, smiling as I spurted my come across your chest—sighing my name, as you pulsed deep within me. You held me close to you then, your hands running up and down my sides, and I was moved to speak.

“I love--”

But you pressed your fingers to my lips and shook your head.

And tonight I learned to hide my love.

 

~*~

Blakeney peered at one of the specimens in my cabin tonight. He keeps spending more and more time with me. I think he’s a little stuck on you.

“It is an insect that looks like a stick. It has disguised itself to survive,” I explained, thinking on how I would have to disguise this thing with you in order to survive on this godforsaken vessel.

And then you come to tell us that you are, yet again, going after the Acheron. Despite my warnings. Or perhaps, because of last night?

“Jack, have you forgotten your promise?” I’d asked, and that had set you off. We quarreled and it was ugly, and ended with you shouting.

“I do not have time for your damned hobbies, sir!”

I shall never forget that, not as long as I live. I never imagined someone could cut me to the quick so efficiently, with such an economy of expression.

As I write this, you are getting soused at dinner; me, I lie here, wretched, with my book. How you break my heart.

“I do not invite you here to criticize or comment on my command. I can only afford one rebel. When you speak of the navy this way, it makes me feel so very low. You’ve come to the wrong shop for anarchy, brother.”

I write these words down, so that when I betray you next, it will make it easier. So that I won’t see your eyes alight, or hear you moan my name, oh no. I will see your eyes blaze with condescension, and I will hear you bellow these belittling words.

~*~

You said, “Sailors can abide a great many thing but not a Jonah. Not everything is in your book.”

Perhaps not, Jack.

For Mr. Hollom, of clear and true voice, took his own life.

The next day you said not all of us become the men we once hoped we might be, but we are all God’s creatures. I was impressed with that. So was God, for he put wind back in our sails. . . .

And then I was shot.

A gut wound that would fester for as long as the material of my shirt lay up underneath my ribs. I lay dying, and you did not come to see me. And I thought perhaps I had said too much, made you hate me, or worse, made you indifferent. Then I thought perhaps you cared too much, and kept yourself above deck so as to not have to see my suffering.

In my fever, I did not realize you were there through much of the night, ever watchful. Blakeney told me afterwards. You watched me dying and could not issue the command to follow the Acheron. Instead you put us down on land. For me. You love me, Jack, I knew it.

“I do this with my own hand,” I told you all, struggling to be brave as I picked up the crude instruments.

The surgery was difficult, but I was more worried about you. You were very pale, dear Jack, and I thought you would pass out. But your hands were on me, steady, and I was reassured. We would sail past this.

This was your way of making amends.

And you can be damned charming when you want to make amends.

I tried to thank you.

“Name a shrub after me,” you said. “Something prickly and hard to eradicate.”

And then you let me wander the island. I took in such wonders, ever grateful that it was you who brought me to them, you, who saved my life, returned my strength, gave me spirit to face the world anew.

And as I crested the hill after my infamous bird, and saw the French colors fly proud and angry off the Acheron, I knew I could not go down and get my orders. I could not inform the French Captain that the HMS Surprise was on the other side of the bay, a fish floating in a barrel. I could not betray your position again. I could not betray us, again.

So I called for Mr. Blakeney, released my precious discoveries, and made my way back to you. Will you ever know the extent of my sacrifice, I wonder?

“I am sorry you had to leave your collection behind,” you told me, quite solemn.

Not as sorry as I would have been, had I to leave you behind today.

And then you got the idea for your nautical fasmid, who would lure the Acheron into battle. “Jack, you’re the predator,” I reminded you, and you just grinned.

I love you, I almost said aloud. But Barnett was at the wheel, and the crew busied to transform the Surprise into the whaling vessel Syren, and the moment was lost.

“Care for a cigar?” I said instead, and this amused you.

~*~

There was an awesome firefight. Instead of working as surgeon in the belly of the Surprise, Blakeney and I joined you. I am a doctor. I save lives. Today I took life away, in great numbers. And for you.

You didn’t wonder at how I knew my way around the Acheron with such ease. You never marveled at my excellent French. You didn’t notice the looks the enemy sailors gave me. I am Irish, after all, Jack. Any good Englishman would have at least suspected me of conspiracy. But not you. You are all passion and honesty.

After the slaughter, you nodded to me, and something like hope came into my breast. We had won the day.

You saw the blood on my face and frowned, but it was not mine. It was Peter Miles Calumny that died, his blood covering my visage. You were sad beyond words, but I could see the relief in your eyes.

Blakeney saw it as well.

He came to my cabin tonight and stared at me, his eyes informing me that he knew about you and I. Knew that we were lovers. That he accepted us. Why?

Because he is in love with you too, Jack. I think, to some degree, we all are. All of us would—and many have—followed you into Hell. What a singular person you are, to make men rush off into the unknown, only to be at your side.

I let Blakeney draw the beetle.

~*~

We played chamber music in your cabin, the warmth of your company such a welcome reprieve.

And then I had to open my mouth and inform you that the Acheron’s doctor had been dead for months.

You immediately realized that the Captain of the French vessel was an insect in his own disguise, and turned our ship around.

You did not wonder at how I might have known about the French physician in the first place. It never has crossed your mind that the informant to the bloody Phantom might be me. It never will occur to you that one of your own might have betrayed you.

But you needn’t fear now. I will make sure you are never betrayed again.

“Subject to the requirements of the service?” I ask.

“Well, Stephen, the bird is flightless,” you say. “It isn’t going anywhere.”

No, Jack. Like my love for you, it will be constant. We may drift on this ever-changing sea, year in and year out, but I cannot imagine a time when I will not be at your side—for duty, for pleasure.

I pick up my cello and pluck the familiar chords. Your sonata nautica.

Doctor Stephen Maturin  
HMS Surprise  
April, 1806.


End file.
